by Sophia James
‘We are as prepared as we ever will be. Ian has the men on the targets each day and they seldom miss their mark.’
‘The supplies are in, too. A good three months of salted meat and vegetables in the cellars.’
Three months. They would never last so long under such an onslaught. Observing Andrew, she saw truth beneath the banter. It was in his eyes and his stance and in the bloodied bandage he had not explained.
‘What happened?’
‘It is always prudent to stem the talk of defeat at its roots.’
‘And did you?’
‘I am getting older, Isobel, and the years of life I have enjoyed are beginning to count against me. There are men here who are young and hungry for the living they might not be able to do if—’
He stopped, the words lost in the wind between them, swirling away on the eddies of coldness into silence.
If?
When!
Had she not been standing here doing just as those soldiers did? Dreaming of more.
The coin lay against her skin, but in the company of Andrew she did not dare to find it. The topic of Marc lay dormant like an unsaid curse.
‘And the party sent to the Lindsays—are they returned yet?’
He shook his head. ‘There is little hope for any last-minute alliance, even given your sweetener, Isobel.’
She smiled at that. ‘If the gold could have helped...’
‘There is still time for some to leave with its succour. The boats are seaworthy.’
‘Of course. The women must go and the children. Whatever room is left after that...perhaps the old might follow.’
‘And you, Isobel. What of you?’
‘Ceann Gronna is my home as no other place could be.’
‘Yet if they capture you and do not kill you? You are hated in Edinburgh and the punishments of those pitting themselves against David have been severe.’
‘They will not take me alive. Have no worry on that score.’
He swore loudly, something he seldom did.
‘I pledge on the soul of Our Lord that we will not make it easy for them to take the keep. Every one of us shall harry ten of theirs into the afterlife.’
Nodding, she met his glance full on. ‘I want to be on the battlements, too. I want to fight alongside you.’
She had not done that before. In the other sieges she had been the one running the keep’s defences from the background. But Andrew had taught her the ways of battle as well as any man and for this campaign she needed to be there, sword in hand, death in hand.
She was relieved when he acquiesced, the struggle of trying to hide her intentions no longer necessary. Already she had had the armourer fashion a helmet and chain mail; she had a powerful bow, almost as tall as she was and made of yew, the arrows fitted with dyed goose-feather fletching in the shades of yellow and red.
If the tunnels to the sea were not breached, then they had a chance, for the concentric walls of Ceann Gronna were thick and strong, those on the upper levels built for the defence of the lower ones.
Isobel’s heartbeat quickened. Did she really dare to hope that they might yet survive this?
Two hundred men! Sometimes she dreamed of an emissary of the king riding in with terms of clemency. If they could hold out just this one more time, could it happen?
On the horizon she saw dust as the party sent to the Lindsay chief came into view, the standard of Ceann Gronna held high.
‘Will you meet them with me?’ she said to Andrew as she turned for the steps that led down into the hall.
* * *
Sir Marc de Courtenay sat in the dining chamber of the great royal castle on the Edinburgh hill of basalt and surveyed the scene before him.
A great many lords and their ladies dressed in all manner of finery dined on banqueting tables covered in crisp white linen.
The king sat beside him, his laugh booming across the room as the Lord of Glencoe related a tale of two young squires and their dogs. Marc himself had ceased to listen a good brace of minutes back.
The Last Supper. The final night before they set out tomorrow for Fife and the recalcitrant Ceann Gronna keep.
The messes before him offered soup and cygnets, eels and lampreys, roast goose, pheasants, swan and pies. The plate he ate from was of pure gold and his cup was overfilled with wine.
But he could not settle. He could not laugh at the descriptions of what the triumphant Loyalists might do to the Dalceann bitch.
The danger made his blood congeal as he chewed the goose meat without savouring it. The prospect of war had long ceased to leave any taste save bitterness in his mouth.
‘Odds are we will be back here enjoying another banquet before summer is at its fullest.’ Archibald McQuarry’s tone was certain and gave no hint of the failure that had taken his oldest brother’s life. He was a sour man of poor humour, a man Marc had not warmed to in the slightest.
‘You have experience, then, of such campaigns,’ Marc countered, knowing full well that he had not.
The other shook his head as he upended his glass. ‘Your knowledge of warfare is unrivalled in all Christianity and you are the favourite of the king.’ The words were said with an undercurrent of spite and foolishness, a lord who hated anyone rising through the ranks of life by sheer hard work and persistence.
It was the wine speaking, Marc surmised, and the inbuilt pretension that seemed to separate nobility from the masses. The blood of a lord flowed through his own veins, too, but a dozen hard-fought battles had cured him for ever of such vanity. Part of him was pleased that he had been saddled with two men who would be easily manoeuvred. It would make the job of what he had to do so much easier. He caught the eye of David, who in turn grabbed his arm, laying his hand hard upon his sleeve before raising the goblet he drank from.
‘To Sir Marc de Courtenay, sent to help Scotland under the Auld Alliance and one of the finest knights who ever rode into battle beneath my banner.’
The sound of cheering lifted to the rafters. How easy it was to mould and shape the opinions of men.
‘And to King Philip the Sixth of France who allowed you leave from the army of Burgundy to bring us support.’
Again the crowd bayed until David gestured silence.
‘The man who steals back the Devil’s tooth around Isobel Dalceann’s neck shall be rewarded well. Mark my words, my lords. I want her blood spilled sure and sweet on to the earth of Ceann Gronna, a warning against all others who might secretly harbour an ill thought of intent.’
The entourage stood at such rhetoric, feet marking the beat of victory and hands using the heavy butt of eating knives to underline pleasure.
Outside through the window of glass the sun draped the room in light. It glinted on Anne of Kinburn’s flaxen hair as she raised her tumbler to him.
Marc pushed down relief. The words of the king still left him leeway. He had not mentioned the death of a traitor. Another hour and the waiting would be over. One more night and he would be gone.
Chapter Seven
It had begun!
The men moving towards Ceann Gronna across the greenness of the low hills in the distance kept coming, swarming like bees from the east. Isobel could see the great banners of the king held aloft on the far plateau, the gold lion of Scotland on a background of burgundy, blowing gentle against the breezes of springtime.
Two hundred men. She had never seen so many in one place and at one time melded together by mail and the colours of war.
The machinery of a siege came, too, the trebuchets with weights and slings and the mangonels, thick bands of twisted cords on the spools of the hurling arms. Oxen pulled them, yoked to the wooden carts in groups of four so heavy was the burden. Tomorrow they would be positioned closer once the commander had seen the lay of the land, the weak spots noted and the tactics drawn.
Her eyes skirted across the countryside as she put herself in the position of her enemy.
The square walls could be used to hold the belfr
ies and the postern to one side of the keep was thinly protected.
On the brow of the hill striped tents were being erected, the flags of royalty marking them as David’s, the trees at the foot of the incline protecting them from wind and rain off the sea.
Already the fires had begun. The cottages near the river were well alight, plumes of thick red flame and black smoke pulling upwards.
‘They will surround us by the afternoon,’ Angus noted, ‘although the sea aspect will stay safe at least.’
‘Thank God for the cliffs.’ Andrew made the sign of the cross as he said it.
Isobel knew there would be no talk of ransom. Ceann Gronna would be sacked and those within the walls killed. She was glad most of the women and all of the children had left by boat, waiting it out in the lands across the border in England with most of the French gold as their surety.
Over the valley she saw a small group of men on horses watching them.
The commanders. She had heard that there were three of them and word had filtered into Fife that their supreme leader was the most experienced fighter in all of Christendom. Her eyes scanned carefully, but there was no distinguishing feature discernible from this distance. Perhaps it was for the best. She did not wish to toss and turn tonight in her cot with the visage of those who would kill her keeping her from sleep. She would see them soon enough. Such a thought made it hard to breathe.
‘I have men in the woods behind them. They will come through the tunnel from the beach this evening after dark and report all that they have seen.’ Ian shoved his sword through a slitted window on the wooden hoardings, tilting it so that the sunlight glinted on the blade. A declaration of intent.
Seeing an answering flash of light, Andrew scuffed at the wood beneath their feet. ‘Come closer, lad, and see what I have to give you,’ he jibed.
A trail of soldiers on horses wound their way down the path to the river, lances held close as they disappeared behind the thin cover of bush to be lost in a cloud of smoke coming in from the sea.
‘They have found the tithe barn,’ she said softly, knowing that it was ablaze from the direction of the wind. Cinders swirled in the heat, creating a new worry of fire.
‘Dusk is an hour away,’ Andrew said. ‘They will dig in till the morrow after the sun is down.’
‘Or use it to their advantage,’ Ian retorted.
Isobel thought of the bowls of water placed just inside the outer walls. If they rippled, it meant tunnels were being dug. With a force this size she expected that to happen and had set the few women left in the keep to watch for any sign of movement.
No one would help them. The Lindsays had sent word that whilst they understood the plight of the Dalceann clan they could not be a party to such direct insult to the king. The Woods and Wemys had said the same.
The ancient patriarchal system of governance in Scotland was gone, the chief and the right of clan law lost to the new view of Crown ownership. Only in acquiescence was there defence. Lord, that her father could have worked this out by the defeat of other keeps, but Ceann Gronna had been the first to refuse the royal ordinance and as such was a shining example of what not to do. Ancient families had seen the strength of the king’s soldiers and capitulated, just as Alisdair had bidden her father do all those years before.
If this siege did not take them, the next one would, though, looking at the size and strength of those that were streaming on to the Dalceann land, Isobel knew in her bones that it would only be a matter of time before they failed.
She failed.
The thought crossed her mind of simply walking out herself and surrendering, on the promise of safety for all that were left inside, but Andrew and she had had this talk before and it was his view that no pledge for leniency would be honoured.
She despised them, this marauding force, these minions of a king who gave no heed to an ancient possession. She loathed that they would kill men and women who had protected this part of Scotland for hundreds of years and more, clan people with the same language as those who would smite them, the same religious beliefs and the same love of country.
A horn sounded from across the valley, baneful in its tone, regrouping men perhaps or just a reminder of menace. She suspected the latter as the sound echoed against the Ceann Gronna stone.
* * *
The keep from this angle looked far more fragile than Marc remembered it.
As his horse moved to the blast of a horn from close by he wondered how the castle could have ever weathered two sustained attacks. Huntworth and Glencoe had been full of the methods they might use in their offensive and Marc could see that the line of fire they had come up with might just work.
Concentrating on the castle, he watched the people on the wooden hourds above the inner wall. The flash of a sword had caught his eye a few moments ago, deliberate probably in its message of provocation. He knew from the intelligence on the way here that many of the Dalceann clan had been sent away on the longboats for England. He hoped like hell that Isobel Dalceann was amongst them, safe and sound from the ire of a king. His gut instinct told him that she would not be, however, and that she was there now, looking out at him and plotting ways to make every life the keep would lose worth its weight in the blood of her enemy.
Him. The enemy. Aye, she would hate him soon enough.
The arrow came from the land to the left, he was to think later, where a thick stand of trees hid the castle from a group of tents placed in the lee of the wind.
It came at a height that might have killed him easily had he not bent at that particular moment to tighten his right footstrap. It twanged into the wide edge of his shield and pierced through two layers of leather and one of wood. As he was not wearing a helmet, he could only imagine what it would have done to his head had the aim been true.
Breaking off the fletching, he looked down at its markings. A king’s arrow! Mariner, his second-in-command, had seen the danger and now galloped up to him from further afield, his face full of question.
‘It did not come from the keep,’ he said, even as Marc handed him the arrow.
‘Then we have someone in our midst who would wish me dead,’ Marc answered,
‘Hell, it’s hard enough to mount a siege without having to look over your shoulders.’ Callum Mariner looked worried.
‘So let us hope this has put him off from trying again.’
* * *
Later that day as Marc returned to his tent he saw Huntworth watching him from a hill above in a manner that was unsettling. There was something about Archibald McQuarry that worried him. A man who held a grudge about being the second-in-command, perhaps? A lord who could not see it in himself to take orders from another sent by a foreign king to Scotland in order to make certain the Auld Alliance was being adhered to.
The incident of the arrow came to mind unbidden. Could he have tried to kill him?
He made a mental note to watch Huntworth carefully and to make certain that his own back remained protected.
* * *
Marc was tired of seeing the mangonels hurling their missiles against an ever-increasingly fragile Ceann Gronna, of hearing the groan of timber and the heavy fall of stone.
Lord God, please let Isobel be away from the wooden hourdings and safe inside the inner wall, for if she was anywhere near the battlements... He made himself stop even as his eyes kept searching for a figure with a long silken swathe of black hair. With the full helmets and heavy mail he could not distinguish one from the other, but the worry in him wound into his blood like a curse.
Why did the keep not just surrender, raise the flag of truce and take their chances within the system of Scottish law? At this rate of attrition they would all be dead in a matter of weeks and nothing much that he could do about it.
His soldiers had taken a pounding, too, but the fires in the timber defences on the roof of Ceann Gronna spewed flame and smoke into the bowels of the castle.
Where the hell was she? Could she have left by the sea
tunnels she had spoken of? He swore beneath his breath because he knew she would not leave until the end, her beloved keep and clan as precious as life itself.
He hoped Andrew or Ian might have the sense to make her stay somewhere away from danger, but even that thought was swallowed up by another.
Isobel Dalceann would fight, he knew it, sword and shield in hand until she fell. The image of her trampled and broken made him swallow back fear, the ache in his throat threatening breath.
* * *
Two weeks had passed since the first assault on the keep and already the outer wall was in danger of being breached by the belfry. At the foot of stone many fallen soldiers lay, face down where death had taken them, left in the elements while others took up their place. Angus lay amongst them.
‘Another day or two and we will have lost,’ Andrew muttered at her side and Ian scowled back at the words.
‘Keep talking like that, old man, and we might as well lay our arms down now,’ he said, his bow letting loose an arrow from the quiver he had at his side.
Isobel’s glance went to the hills further beyond the encampment. If only help would come, she thought, if only she might spy some glinting armour of an allied force in the distance.
But there was nothing.
Her world turned on the moments left to them, less and less given the position of the belfry, its body swathed in wet cattle skins so that the Dalceann fire might not harm it.
The noise of battle had dimmed, too, a quieter ferocity than the out-and-out chaos of the days past.
Not long.
Her fingers crept to the coin at her throat.
* * *
Marc took fifteen of his best men and gestured them to follow through the sea path and around the edge of the sheer cliff that rose up into the limed white walls of Ceann Gronna.
He knew the way, for he had scouted out this entrance on the second day of arriving here, the door that blocked the path proving little obstacle to a man who had picked the locks of some of the most important portals in Europe. There were no boats. He had seen that, too, gone probably with those who had left for the safety of England before spring.
